My 20 year old son passed out whilst visiting the toilet at around 4 am in the morning - was unconscious - and had cuts especially around upper and lower eyes from landing on sharp object.

Ambulance team were great but concerned about a few things so took to Lincoln General via Ambulance. In my opinion they could not have been more professional and were informative and considerate of anxious parents.

Arriving at Lincoln County A & E was a different experience altogether.

My son was placed in a cubical for assessment and left unattended for more than 10 minutes, his mother and I were left to stand at the desk - 5 Staff sat in a huddle but no acknowledgement. We went and sat in the cubical with him.

After 10 mins I had to Speak out and asked courteously what was happening, nobody seemed to know.

One of the staff from the sitting group came over and asked questions about his injuries and then left - again no courtesy or information.

Shortly after a doctor arrived - like the ambulance crew he was very professional, calm and informative.

After treatment of his wounds we were told he would need referral back to a specialist due to his eye injury and that the doctor would arrange this.

Whist waiting my son began to shiver quite visibly, I highlighted this to the nursing staff but they seemed totally indifferent.

Fortunately I had an outdoor coat on, it was quite cold and my son was in his pajamas, and I put my coat over him.

The doctor arrived and passed us an appointment note to revisit and said he would get the nurse to discharge us.

we waited again but nobody seemed interested yet again, when I asked the staff what we should do I was told we could just go - I had to help my son off the bed and we left.

The main frustration, attitude and communication.

We had a real chalk and cheese experience and we're not left feeling confident in the service - certainly not looking forward to the re visit this afternoon!

Responses

I do hope that your son is feeling better now and has made a full recovery from his injuries. It's good to hear that your experience of East Midlands Ambulance Service was a positive one. If you would like your comments passing to the ambulance crew that looked after your son, our Patient Experience Team would be happy to help with this if you email them at PALS.Office@emas.nhs.uk giving them details of the date, time and location the ambulance came to.

Thank you for taking the time to post your comments I am sorry that you found the A&E team to be less than responsive to your son’s needs. I would like to investigate this with the team on duty at the time so if you would be willing to let me know the date of your attendance or your son’s details I will be able to address the issues with staff involved. My contact details are: Karen.Hansord@ulh.nhs.uk.